I absolutely love visiting Kate’s gorgeous flower shop Rambling Rose Flowers in Beaminster here in Dorset. I also love capturing it through the seasons, with photos here I have taken in Autumn, Christmas & Spring. There is a really lovely interview with Kate for you to enjoy reading too. xx

Autumn scenes in Kate’s shop which is filled to the brim with locally grown seasonal flowers & foliage.

Tell us a little about your creative journey into a career in Floristry?

I had been travelling in India in my early 20s and came back to London not really knowing what I wanted to do. I was staying with my sister on the Portobello Road and passed the amazing flower shop Wild at Heart. I bought a bunch of flowers, a mass of Cornflowers and Alchemilla…it was so simple but had such impact.

I asked for a job straight away and was hired as a junior, I spent quite a while sweeping the floor, conditioning flowers and making tea, but was there for over 10 years and ended up running the events, a role which taught me so much!

Was this something you had always wanted to do?

Not at all, although I do think a love of nature and plants is in my blood. I grew up in the countryside so feel much more at home there than in a town or city. My Dad was an amazing gardener, so we were always surrounded by an abundance of flowers, fruit and veg. He dragged us around beautiful gardens throughout our childhood, we moaned about how boring it was, but would sit in the car on the way home quizzing each other on how to spell plant names like rhododendron and azalea.

I loved making little bunches of wild flowers when I was little and helped Dad in the garden all the time, mainly tinkering in his greenhouse.

Beautiful Autumn scenes at Rambling Rose.

What pathway has led you to setting up your beautiful shop in Dorset?

Although Wild at Heart taught me so much, I feel my real appreciation of beautiful flowers came from my great friend Victoria Brotherson who I worked with at ‘Wild at Heart’ and subsequently at her wonderful flower shop Scarlet and Violet in Kensal Rise. Vic is truly inspirational and her flowers are like paintings, working with colour, texture and form, she studied fine art and it is so apparent in her arrangements.

My Mum is also a great gardener and helped at the Walled garden in Little Bredy. when I first moved down from London I rented a beautiful cottage in the village just opposite the gardens and was so lucky to be able to enjoy them when I liked and even luckier to cut flowers there for my work. I set up Rambling Rose as a flower business whilst living there working on lovely local weddings and parties, my main aim was to work with flowers I had grown myself or by local growers, drawing inspiration from seasonality and the surrounding countryside and hedgerows.

I was also working for my friends Louise and Cass at Brassica Restaurant in Beaminster, I helped run the restaurant and of course got to supply the flowers (which I still do), this tied in perfectly with Louise’s beautiful interiors and incredible eye for colour.

The flower shop in Beaminster had always caught my eye as a great location and space, it didn’t sell the sort of flowers I particularly liked but the site was perfect… when I heard it was coming up for rent I couldn’t bare the thought of someone else getting it and opening another ‘typical’ flower shop full of imported flowers, so I guess my ego drove me to say yes to taking it on. Louise and Cass were fully supportive as were my friends and family. I was terrified but thought I had nothing to lose except the money I’d borrowed to do it!!

Filling the shop was easy and fun, it’s sort of a mini Scarlet & Violet, not a direct copy but I hope more an homage… I bought lovely bits of furniture from my friend Sharon at Old Albion in Bridport, loads of enamel and floral jugs, buckets and vases from Shepton Mallet Flea and of course flowers from as many local growers as possible. I do import flowers as well but try and keep them as seasonal as I can.

How do you describe your style?

English country garden with a bright and bonkers twist… I love colour and texture, I prefer bunches to be a little wild using one off stems rather than the traditional rules of symmetry and tone.

Where do you gather inspiration from?

Everywhere… mainly nature itself, hedgerows and beautiful gardens, wild or tended.

I love art and textiles and of course constantly admire other peoples work on Instagram, mainly flower and foliage farmers as I would love to grow more myself but just don’t have the time.

Beautiful hand-made wreaths fill the shop at Christmas.

Do you have a favourite season?

I am writing this in Autumn and have to say it probably is my favourite. I definitely love all the colours of autumn, the amazing foliages, berries, dahlia, hydrangea, cosmos, rudbekia, and the light is incredible…but then if you ask me again in the Spring I might change my mind, I love the new growth, the freshness, the feeling of everything waking up after a long dark winter and then there’s the abundance of cow parsley in the lanes which makes me so happy… followed by sweet peas, peonies, garden roses….not sure I’ve answered that one!

What does a typical day look like for you in the shop?

It’s a much gentler day than working at a London flower shop! I no longer start the day with a 5.30am trip to the flower market, something I definitely miss but not sure I could physically do very often any more! Instead I get most of the flowers delivered or I collect them from local growers.

No day is the same as you never know what orders may come in, we condition all the flowers then get the shop looking lovely, some days are non stop with a constant stream of customers. Beaminster is a lovely town with a great mix of shops, so it’s always pretty busy, especially in the holidays or summer months.

On quieter days I’ll try and catch up on admin, (not my forte) I always have a backlog of wedding and event quotes to do, and often have appointments in the afternoons with clients for weddings and parties. Sometimes I’ll go out to do flowers on site, or have a site visits for an event so it’s a lovely mix every day.

What do you love most about your work?

The flowers and foliage! I love it when things first come into season, getting the first big bucket of dahlias or a beautiful mix of multicoloured ranunculus. Getting the shop out is always lovely, filling it with fresh flowers in all the different containers and vases I’ve collected over the years. I always feel very satisfied once everything is in its place and looking good…although it normally means I’ve spent too much money!!

And its always lovely to get good feedback, whether from a shop customer or happy bride, yesterday a lady told me the shop was the most beautiful shop she’d ever seen. I said I was sure it wasn’t really but it was a lovely thing to hear!